Retirement and residential care home specialist Anchor Trust is seeking a property agent to advise it on its £850m-plus portfolio.
Anchor Trust, which was founded as Help the Aged (Oxford), is the UK’s largest not-for-profit provider of housing, support and care for older people. The company has issued an OJEU advert “seeking property consultants to advise on the disposal of a number of properties through valuationto sale”.
The trust’s portfolio comprises 1,000 sites across England, and had a net book value at 31 March of £851.5m.
The properties offer more than 28,865 bedrooms and produces an annual rent of around £200m.
A spokesman for the group said the appointment was part of a continuing review of its business. “We are constantly looking at the viability of our sites, which is something you have to do when you have a portfolio of this size,” he said.
Any sale is likely to attract the interest of a wide range of commercial property investors that are looking for alternative asset classes in which to invest.
A number of traditional commercial property players have already started to move into the sector.
In June, Morgan Stanley Real Estate set up a joint venture with US-based Sunrise Senior Living to buy and operate £540m of UK nursing homes while fund manager Invista, with investor Prestigic Holdings, bought a portfolio of six properties from Leeds-based Orchard Care Homes in a £70m sale-and-leaseback deal.
Residential care home specialist Lifestyle Care also put a £260m portfolio of its properties on the market in July in a bid to capitalise on new interest in the sector.
